Dr. Bogner Health Podcast

This podcast marks Dr. Bogner’s inaugural episode as he kicks off the new year of 2023. Dr. Christian Bogner is a certified OBGYN who has transitioned into an expert in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Genetics, and challenges related to cognition. His personal experience with his son Phillip, who is on the spectrum, inspired his shift away from traditional medicine.

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Ep1 Dr. Bogner Health Podcast Inaugural Edition

English Transcript | Arabic Transcript | Spanish Transcript


This is an inaugural podcast, something that’s been wanting to have been done for Dr. Bogner for quite a long time in the making and finally getting around to it with the break of the new year in 2023. But more importantly, to get connected better with a lot of parents and individuals out there that are having questions about health and healthcare and what they can do differently in supporting their journey with a lot of evidence and a lot of theory backed by a lot of evidence. And more importantly, reinforcement in a group where you can share ideas and not feel dumb, embarrassed, feel silenced and have your feelings validated for all the different situations you have for that individual or be it yourself.

My name is Dwight Zahringer. I’ve been on a journey myself, with my family for the past decade, and I met Dr. Bogner at the start of my journey, luckily enough for me. And since then, we’ve grown and had a pretty good friendship. The kind that definitely calls him a “compadre of mine.” And I wanted him to start to find some different means, now that he’s doing all solo consulting and kind of blowing up in regards to that worldwide, how he can start to share more and more information because there’s never enough time in the day to try to get all these things out or down into a blog post or into a newsletter. And his day is so full of talking to individuals and looking through lab files and making recommendations and researching all these new things that are being thrown at us on a regular basis. And then having some time to sit in a leather chair with his favorite kombucha and think about how does this come into play? How does this change things? Is this potentially a viable solution? Is this part of a solution? And who would this be palatable to?

And then, he is got to go through that deep, deep drawer of all that microfiche in the brain and think about all the different clients he’s worked with and all the different patients that are current and of the past. And then, after the kids go to bed and he’s sitting there thinking… when he should be thinking about sheep jumping over the moon to put himself to sleep, he’s thinking about, “I should contact this person. They’re actually over in India and I should send them an email and see if they want to talk about this. And this is something that they’ve tried or considered or is it accessible where they’re at?” These are all different things that this wonderful German man sitting across from me knows a lot about and has kind of dedicated his life to.

Dr. Christian Bogner. Thank you for joining your own show.

Dr. Bogner:

I’m excited. Hello.

Dwight:

So let’s kind of start off a little bit of your background for people that are just, I guess, coming across you for the first time online through usually with a lot of referrals, but they’re finding you and they’re wondering, “Who’s this dude? What’s he talking about? How did he help this other person?” What is your background? What is it that you do?

Dr. Bogner:

Well, I was born in Germany and was raised with a brother and a sister in and loving family and in a family of an OB-GYN (dad). I did my first C-section when I was 12 years old because we lived right across the hospital (and my dad took me when no one else was readily available). I came to the US when I was 17 as an exchange student and really fell in love with this country, wanting to come back. So I went back to Europe and studied medicine and met my ex-wife, who brought me back here, to Michigan, and I started my residency in OB-GYN.

Then we had my son, Philip. He’s 17 now. And at age two, he was diagnosed with autism. So as an OB-GYN, I wasn’t trained in that and I didn’t know anything about it. I spent day and night researching what can be done because it was an acute regression with him and he did have words prior. He met all his milestones until 18 months when he received the MMR vaccine.

And so I started on my journey. Eventually, it led to, I think like many families, led to separation from my then-wife. It was a lot of stress and a lot of disagreements in regard to which way to go. And so I continued on that path even without being with her and found myself basically, 24/7, whenever I could, whenever I had a minute to research autism. And back then, about 15 years ago, there wasn’t much that could be done in regard to alternative medicine. We were just told to get some blood work, make sure he doesn’t have Fragile X Syndrome, make sure he doesn’t have lead poisoning, and then, go through the ABA, speech therapy, and occupational therapy, and that all didn’t work.

Dwight:

Well, let me just cut into that because traditionally here, if you’re in the United States listening and you do have either public or private health insurance and you are pretty much navigating a path that what you have to do is follow the rules. And so unless you are immensely rich or you have very, very deep pockets, you have to go through all of the appointments. You have your assessment is done, which includes, I think, three to four different types of behavioral psychologists. Sometimes that can be months. A decade ago, it took us nine and a half months to get that appointment. And then, you wait a month for them to reconcile all of their assessments. And it usually is a paper, a page each, that all reconcile to one point that your child is on an autism spectrum and they’re at this level. So think of a little gauge. It’s a financial gauge or it’s a thermometer or it’s like your RPM on your car and it just kind of tells you where they think you’re at.

And then for me, at least, I got a poorly Xeroxed copy packet that wasn’t even straight, basically telling me public services and private services in two different places in the state of Michigan I could call. And that ABA services, advanced behavioral analysis therapy, would be the best route for my child and that I and my wife should just think about how we’re going to plan for his long-term because he’s going to need help and care for the rest of his life. He’s not going to be normal. He’s not going to be a part of the general populace, so [inaudible 00:07:10] take care of himself. So just plan for that. And any questions? You got to go. I got someone else waiting outside. So sorry. Good luck. And that’s really what ends up happening and it’s horrible that it goes that way, right?

So let’s talk about… we’re going to do some podcasts in the future and talk about all the different things that parents do go through because I think there needs to be a lot of… I think a lot of people on their journey, whatever it’s for, if it’s going to be for autism if it’s going to be for epilepsy if you’re one of the real lucky parents, you have maybe Down syndrome, maybe autism, maybe epilepsy thrown inside of there too, leaky gut. You might have just a cornucopia of great stuff with your child or a loved one. Could be a father, could be a mother, could be a spouse, could be a neurotypically normal child, but they’re having other issues and you’re just kind of tired of all the stuff that you’re going through with insurance and with doctors and feel like man, as parents, well, as you grow older, you learn to listen to your gut more. It’s honed and you just… I think either your gut gets better at telling you what’s right or your ears start to become clearer and actually hear what it’s telling you. But you start to question. And now, let’s not even go into the aspect of society that we live in of how much is going on and [inaudible 00:08:34] we’re really questioning what we hear, what we’re being told and why and trying to navigate your normal lives.

But I think there are a lot of things we can speak to because you have to be in the best shape that you possibly can be health-wise and mentally wise in order for you to be the best advocate that you can be for that individual in your life that you’re trying to seek help for. And so that’s a big thing that gets overlooked. Dr. Bogner also mentioned in regards to spouses and challenges that you have inside of a marriage. And then, we go into the educational system. We can even throw siblings into that. And then, we can look at decisions that you’re making and how you are voicing some of those things and God forbid you actually offer suggestions to other people that are on the complete another side of the fence when you hear about a solution or not. And so there’s a lot of emotions and there’s a change of your society that you go through and you realize you’re being indoctrinated into a different part of a society that, really, you’ve never been exposed to or understand what it is.

It’s a kind of baptism by fire that goes on. There is no timeline for how this happened. There is no laid path. But I think one of the things that Christian, Dr. Bogner has done is put together a protocol of how to start some real steps to get yourself a baseline and know exactly where you’re at at the foundation and then start to work from there and start slow and low modifications and really try to stick with those so you could see changes and results.

And why I’m on here as well as because I’ve been… I was crazy. I went through a lot of things with my child and I am pretty extremely aggressive when I do these different things. I got my junior doctorate in the public space of alternative health, a lot of late-night reading, a lot of podcast listening, a lot of research, a lot of hard questioning. Wow, we’ve got some stories. People that we’ve gone out and met, flown across the country, went and looked for things across the pond, across oceans. We’ve tried a lot of different things to see how some of these might be a part of a solution. Always looking for the silver bullet, of course, but then, looking at other things and how they start to heal components of it. And I like to talk about it as far as, in simplistic terms, in order to change a wheel on a car, you have to jack up the car, and then you have to loosen lug nuts and then you actually have to take the wheel off. So there’s a process to go through these things. You can’t just swap a tire. There are a lot of things that have to be done and you have to go through steps and there are tools and there are efforts.

If those lug nuts have been on there for a long time, it can be really hard to take that off. If some of the lug nuts are stripped, it might be hard to turn those. If the vehicle’s very heavy, it’s on soft ground, it’s going to be hard to get it up in the air. There are going to be things you’re not going to anticipate that are going to come across the path and they’re all going to require you to invest undocumented, unanticipated time, finances, mental strain, and stress, amongst others, all while you try to live a normal life, go to work, and try to take care of your family. And why don’t you laugh or have a drink or a good meal? Hell, maybe even make love with your spouse every once in a while. Just throw that in for good measures, right?

But we’re going to go over a number of these things, different weeks, and talk about some of these different aspects and then things that he’s found and things that are working for others and different aspects and how to read tests, how to look at some of that feedback, how to work with your trusted doctors, neuropathy, alternative practitioners, how to act and work in groups. There’s a lot of great information. There are a lot of great journeys. There are a lot of great people out there that are sharing things.

And then finally, the underlying aspect is monetary. And there’s the fuel that moves every type of vehicle in the world, right? Gasoline for cars and for aviation, and coal creates steam in the old trains. Propulsion, jet fuel that’s going to send a rocket up to the moon if that ever happened, really. And all those aspects, but money is what’s going to drive a lot of people to push their products. Believe me, we’ve been to numerous conferences. We’ve gone to some pretty deep, specific, and weird, frankly, very weird types of places and conferences and gatherings and looked at a lot of different… what do they call it? Not [inaudible 00:13:23], but false hope? What are some of the terms they use for something like that?

Dr. Bogner:

Snake oil?

Dwight:

Snake oil, a lot of snake oil that’s being sold out there for different things. There’s a lot of prey, a lot of prey in the sick and the weak. And it plays on your heartstrings and you find ways in trying to navigate through the feelings of, will this help? Maybe it will? Oh my God, it looked like it wouldn’t. They’re saying that didn’t. Oh my God, I read these testimonials and other people online and that’s all marketing. There are a lot of aspects to that, but for some people, it does help in a lot of different ways.

Anyways, I always speak about this with Dr. Bogner because I’ve been indoctrinated. I’ve done the hazing now. I’m still in my hazing phase. I don’t think I’m ever going to get out of it. But found a lot of good stuff and kind of gotten now to a lower level. We’re kind of normalized and taking slow steps. And I, in the future, want to talk about also where you get to comfort levels of realizing what life is and what your life’s about and your life with your loved one and how that’s going to move forward and how you find comfort in those things. And that’s really, really tough for those words to roll out of your mouth. How do you find comfort in that moving forward? There is acceptance along the way, I promise you.

So let’s get into a couple of questions so the audience gets a good idea of what Dr. Bogner does. Let’s talk a little bit about the recent background. You’re now privately practicing yourself and doing consults specifically through your online portal. And before that, where did you go for OB-GYN? You did that for quite a few years and then you went… without going into deep details of names and stuff, but where did that take you through, and then what led you to the journey where you are? Let’s talk about the past four or five years.

Dr. Bogner:

Well, the last 10 years, really, is when I started to dive into autism research, even though I was a busy OB-GYN seeing about 30 patients a day and taking night shift calls. And that’s when you and me as you mentioned, we went to the autism conferences. We, I think, presented at autism one for five years in a row, traveled the whole country, different conferences, and spoke to different experts. And so for the last six years, yeah, I’ve been counseling patients exclusively affected in the alternative medicine realm, particularly focusing on autism.

About 5 years ago, I was working for a facility that was offering also hyperbaric oxygen therapy and ABA services. And I was the medical director just doing consults. And so I saw a lot of the other alternative therapies or mainstream therapies on a daily basis and spoke to, I don’t know, 1,000 patients affected, 1,000 families affected with autism all around the world and started to get feedback from the parents. What works? What doesn’t? What about those labs? Do I see a common denominator with autism?

And as you know, autism is… we have a child, at 2:00 in the morning, banging in his head, screaming. And on the other side, we have a child at the same age playing the piano but is socially awkward. But yet, they both have the same diagnosis. So what are the differences between those patients? Do we know what can be done? How do you tackle it? How do you navigate through it? It didn’t come with an instruction manual, certainly from the mainstream medical approach, which really is sad, very sad.

Dwight:

Well, I mean, we grow up knowing that that’s what you do. That is how you’re indoctrinated. That is just the process. That’s raising your hand to get up out of your chair in the classroom or to get a drink at the drinking fountain, get in the line to go back in from recess. Those are just things we learn and that’s just how things are.

Dr. Bogner:

I was trained in medical school and a 4-year residency and then in private practice settings in OB-GYN for eight years after that. So 12 years of mainstream medicine with an extra six years of learning the basics of medicine. I realized, seeing 30 patients a day, you don’t have time to listen to them. You come up with a solution fairly quickly, even sending them out with a prescription with the old alledged saving silver bullet, like you mentioned. And I found that the key is to really listen and to obtain a good history. Most of the information you can get from a good history and let the parent talk because nobody’s listening to them. And so there’s a lot of good information in a good history that can be extracted to formulate a game plan on how to get your child better. And that’s where we’re at right now. So I left mainstream… separated from that…didn’t agree. Patient care was not ideal.

Dwight:

About two years ago.

Dr. Bogner:

…yes, about two years ago, started my own practice and that’s what I do right now. Just every day, talk to parents affected with children with autism. Also, seeing adults that are interested, seeing a lot of parents that are stressed, drained.

Dwight:

Whole host of things,

Dr. Bogner:

A host of things.

Dwight:

Not just parents, but also adults. And it could be consulting someone that’s an adult child that’s talking about their elder adult that maybe has ALS or starting to get dementia, aspects of things like that.

I have a really good friend and he has Parkinson’s he was diagnosed probably about five years ago, and at that time, I talked to him a little bit about cannabis and being treated for some of that, right when we got into some legalities here with medical cards and little more accessibility, but with oils and he didn’t want to do it. And he’s gone the medical route and there’s a progression, I think when it’s like that they’re chasing a person down the LA Freeway and you’re watching them run down and they blew out the tires and you’re just watching the rim just start to slowly disintegrate into nothing and it starts to progress very quickly until they can’t move anymore. And I’m starting to watch that with this gentleman. And I’ve made numerous times for him to have a conversation with Dr. Bogner. He’s always just kind of hummed and hawed about it, that he is working with a group and they’re doing things, but he’s taking medications and he talks about how it makes him feel. And he takes one in the morning and maybe half of one in the afternoon because he doesn’t want to become reliant on it.

But the mobility factor that’s progressed over the past 12 months is unbelievable to the point now, he can’t even drive himself. And it’s a progression that’s leading down a road to the inevitable. And it’s hard to sit here and love a person and you see these things happen and how can you allow those things to happen? What control do you have? But it’s natural. It’s accepted more in society to do things that way because it’s been the path that’s been laid out for quite a long time. And that’s just what happens. It is what it is, and that’s what we go about doing.

But when it affects predominantly a child and as a parent, you know your child best and from the inside and there’s a spiritual connection that gives you information as well and you just know that it’s not exactly this. This is just not going to do it. Or you end up realizing that it’s a medication that they’ve been having and it’s just simply coding a problem, but creating another problem. Now, they want me to take another medication and there might be things that have to be changed in other aspects. So it’s kind of tough in navigating all those aspects.

So when you do a consult, that’s your starting point. It’s actually very simplistic the path you take a patient on. You have a sit-down with them. And what do you guys go over, in generalization?

Dr. Bogner:

First of all, I don’t start immediately by asking about what’s going on with the child. I want to know the family dynamics. How is your relationship with your spouse? Does the child have siblings? How does it affect them? What do you do? Did you have to quit your job?

Dwight:

And why do you bring that up?

Dr. Bogner:

What?

Dwight:

Why do you bring that up?

Dr. Bogner:

With the sibling?

Dwight:

Yeah, well, with not jumping into about who the person is specifically that they want to have treated or they’re looking to talk to you to get information about, but why is it important to hear about?

Dr. Bogner:

Well, I think it’s important to know what type of environment the child is in because oftentimes, I realized over the last six years that you can come up with the perfect plan for that child, but are the parents able to execute that plan? Oftentimes, there are divorced parents and the child goes on the weekend to dad’s, and the dad just doesn’t agree with the treatment. And so those things are very important. If you didn’t have that information and you have a follow-up and there’s no improvement, well, it would’ve been good to know. And so it does take both parents or whoever the child is with to be on board with this because it’s not easy. It’s not easy to follow a plan of proper detoxification and evaluation with laboratory tests and so forth to get on the right path because there will be setbacks. There will be detoxification. Things might get worse before they get better.

And so yeah, I want to know about all of this. I want to know when your child goes to sleep when he wakes up if he moves at night. If he poops, what the color, shape, and frequency of the poops are, if they brush their teeth, and their mood when they wake up. Every little piece of information is important and is documented and then integrated into laboratory findings to come up with a structured plan, a plan that is helping me to make a recommendation or suggestion of what could be done or discussed with the patient’s primary care provider.

And the “plan” is ever-evolving, as it’s mostly based on feedback, feedback from other parents. Hey, this worked for my child. Then if you start seeing a pattern that works for more and more kids for a specific abnormality on the lab test or symptom, then that’s something to hold onto and integrate. And so that’s what I’ve been doing over the last six years. We‘ve gone through countless supplements. I mean, you remember how we ordered GcMAF from Europe or from Japan, wherever it was from, and-

Dwight:

Europe too. Bulgaria.

Dr. Bogner:

Europe too. And it came up with mold…..or the cannabis, for example?

Dwight:

No, no, no, no, no, no. The moldy product was…

Dr. Bogner:

Rerum?

Dwight:

No, not [inaudible 00:24:35]. It was Klinger. It was… no, not Klinger. That was a German guy. That was with…

Dr. Bogner:

Wasn’t it Klinghardt?

Dwight:

Rogerio.

Dr. Bogner:

Ruggerio!

Dwight:

It was… God damn, it wasn’t him but…. It was another product.

Dr. Bogner:

GcMAF

Dwight:

It was a GcMAFbase, but that’s the one that grew the mold.

Dr. Bogner:

Yeah. Remember the years that we fought in the courts here in Michigan and presented our case to give kids with autism access to cannabis?

Dwight:

Yeah, we’ll talk about that another time. I think that’s a worthy episode to go through those things. So when you’re doing a consultation, it’s gathering a lot of information about the home base and what’s really going on. I think this is important for someone that’s listening to consider because, again, he mentioned how in the OB-GYN world it was… you got no criteria, but you have a… what’s the word? Each day, you had to have so many patients you’ve seen.

Dr. Bogner:

Yeah, your quota.

Dwight:

He had a quota, had a quota to hit, and then you had goals. And then, if you achieved goals and got through more, then you got a bonus. And that was an exposure for me, at least, validation of what I suspected, but really validation in a lot of ways of how those things work. And we peeled back the layers of the onion in that and a lot of other aspects of the health industry.

Dr. Bogner:

And as you know, that’s not just OB-GYN.

Dwight:

No, no, no, not at all. We have proof in other ones as well too. So it’s important that, as you said, you have a good base and who’s going to be running with the flag up the hill? What’s your support team looking like? What are some of the challenges you have? Everybody has financial challenges in regard to these things, and everybody also has challenges with taking in data and continuous testing. I, for one, have figured out the… basically, it’s like the blood draw taco, the burrito where I have to wrap up my child like a very, very tight burrito with an arm out so that we can have one or two individuals on him so he can actually take a needle to get blood. And we usually have someone that comes to the house to do that, which is crazy because if you go out and do that into the generalized public, well then, you can get into issues with people just looking at you like idiots, even practitioners because those are low-level practitioners, unfortunately, just nurses that draw blood. They’re just not of all of the smartest and best humans in the world.

Dr. Bogner:

I know of alternative medicine docs who refuse to see patients with autism because it scares away the other patients.

Dwight:

Exactly, exactly. So it’s important, I think, that there’s that aspect to understand because you’re going to go in the consult, you’re going to invest some of your time and some money, but that’s also going to be laying down some stuff on the table, saying that I’m committed and I’m wanting to do something here. I’m very serious. So you got some skin in it to try to win it. And I can tell you that a constant conversation that I and Dr. Bogner have had over the years is that it is just challenging with how much time he has that he gives and how he can stay compensated just so that he can pay some of his bills, but splitting that time between his family and for all these patients because they become his extended family. It’s amazing the joy and the challenges that are shared all the time offline that a lot of people don’t see that he’s involved in. And so I just want to speak to that portion of the personality and the individual that you’re going to be dealing with.

So a lot of people come to you and they’re like… it’s kind of like an attorney, right? I’m going to come to you. I’m going to tell you my case, everything that’s going on and how I was done wrong and what I want and what I’m going to do and all these other things. And then it’s like, all right, so you’ve done a bunch of testing or you’ve done some testing or I have some labs and these different things and these are the times. And then, he is going to ask you to basically, well, for your online system, create an account, then upload documents to there. And then it gives him a chance to go through those and look at where they’re at and say, “Okay, so…” again, let’s go back to the changing the the scenario.”

I am looking at how you’re changing the tire, and I noticed that you’re missing a wrench to take the lug nuts off. You got the spare tire out there and you got the jack and it’s up in the sky. And other people are telling you to like, “Well, you just need to use… real hard with your hand. Put your elbow into it.” But you’re like, “No, man, I think we need another test to find out this other aspect.” So then, there are recommendations for other tests to be done. And then, getting those results and then implementing along the way, I think, continuously is what you should do and how you should do it and what you should start with and what you should test out and how those come into effect. And I think what a lot of people don’t take for… well, they definitely see value in it, but at face value is that initial assessment and knowing where the baseline of where you’re starting and pointing some flaws. As you said, it could be separated parents and the child’s going on Wednesdays and on the weekends to the other spouse’s and that person doesn’t believe in it 100%, so they’re doing a Hungry Howie’s Fridays, White Castle Saturday afternoons, ice cream at night, all these other aspects, and the kid’s sitting on electronics all day long. So there’s different stimuli.

So I think we’ve all experienced this probably in our younger ages when we were more motivated, or at least for me, where you would party the weekend out and consume all the alcohol and all the junk food. And then Monday, I was like, “Oh, I got to detox all this and eat salads all week.” So you try to reverse it to tip the boat the other way, but then you just keep going on this crazy ride and you wonder why you don’t feel really good and you’re not sleeping well and you’re agitated and you’re brain-fogged and you’re fat because you’re not continuing on one path. You’re jig-jagging back and forth. So understanding those things are going to be kind of important too.

So once you get these documents, review them. Then, you meet and go through and come up with a game plan and then lay out exactly what the next steps are going to be and where to meet up, and how to benchmark those things. And then from there, it’s, I guess, a more paved journey that’s catered specifically to that individual, right?

Dr. Bogner:

That sums it up pretty well, yeah.

Dwight:

Okay, okay. And so I think that’s a good start to get an idea of where you’re going to be and what you’re going to do. Now, Dr. Bogner has a really nice website, drbognerhealth.com. All of that information is on there. I know that he’s going to be looking to put a lot of more content on there that’s going to be helpful along with the podcast. But you can get information on a lot of different testing that he does recommend, even things you can take away from here and go perform yourself with your own practitioner. You have to look at it as a resource guide. But if you want to schedule a consult with him, you can definitely do that directly online. Even has some of the different tests that you can get, for instance, mold and order those tests and get those done and even just pay for a consult to have a second opinion or first opinion on the results of those things. So it’s kind of important to go through the website and look at all those aspects.

And another important part is FAQs. Definitely read through the frequently asked questions because a lot of common questions people do have can be answered right there. And one of the biggest ones, I think, that I’ve heard a lot in the past is people don’t realize they actually have a health savings account or an FSA. And a lot of times, a lot of these tests and consults aren’t covered because it’s not following the traditional path that insurance requires in a lot of ways. But working with your financial advisor, your CPA, you can find ways to utilize and be reimbursed or use your funds directly from those to support things like this. And that’s going to be all tax-deferred. So they;re going to be different in every country in regards to the way you do things like that, but I would definitely take more time to look into those aspects to do those.

So we will wrap it up here and then look to do the next one very, very soon.